San Francisco can be hard to crack for uninitiated tourists, with many rookie mistakes to be made and traps to fall into. And while San Francisco welcomes and appreciates visitors, locals can't help getting a kick out of tourists' antics. Here are some strange things visitors here do.

Photo: Robert Alexander, Getty Images

San Francisco can be hard to crack for uninitiated tourists, with...

San Francisco can be hard to crack for uninitiated tourists, with... Photo-4974774.67183 - SFGate

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Ride Segways through Golden Gate Park
By now we can safely say the Segway didn't change the world. But it did provide tourists with a less inexpensive alternative to walking. Authorized tours still operate, even though the city banned Segways on the sidewalk in 2002. Pro tip: walk, even though it's only 95% the speed of a Segway.

Photo: Robert Alexander, Getty Images

Ride Segways through Golden Gate Park
By now we can safely say the...

Ride Segways through Golden Gate Park
By now we can safely say the... Photo-4974775.67183 - SFGate

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Rent a car
There’s a quick way to put a handicap on your San Francisco vacation if you’re worried about feeling too carefree: rent a car. You can balance the joy of vacation with the frustration of driving and parking in the city: waiting through lines of traffic, circling blocks looking for a spot and struggling to start in first gear on a steep, steep incline.

Photo: Noah Berger, The Chronicle

Rent a car
There’s a quick way to put a handicap on your San...

Rent a car
There’s a quick way to put a handicap on your San... Photo-4974776.67183 - SFGate

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Rent a Go Car, be frightened by passing motorists
How can anyone be surprised that being in a knee-high, open-top, soap-box racer is scary in San Francisco traffic? Maybe tourists expect them to travel on a track? Perks of Go Cars include being dwarfed by powerful cars on dangerous streets, being exposed to the wind, and relying on an underpowered engine on steep hills.

Photo: David Paul Morris, Getty Images

Rent a Go Car, be frightened by passing motorists
How can anyone...

Rent a Go Car, be frightened by passing motorists
How can anyone... Photo-4974777.67183 - SFGate

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Wear shorts in July
It doesn’t really matter that Mark Twain never actually said: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” There’s still no better way to say it. Summer tourists come to San Francisco expecting California and they get Scotland.
From July to August, San Francisco has the lowest average and peak temperatures of any major U.S. City. Unsuspecting visitors are betrayed by their shorts, their skirts, their sandals and their exposed skin. Sure, there are warm, sunny days in the city, but only when no one is counting on them.

Ride the cable car, say they rode the trolley
There are a few mistakes to make with these cars. First of all, those iconic San Francisco transports—the ones in Tony’s classic tune, on countless tees and coffee cups—are cable cars, not trolleys.
There is also another (more used, less quaint) network of streetcars in San Francisco. Since the city uses historic cars on this line, tourists get confused about which kitschy carriage of yesteryear they’ve ridden. Easy reference: no overhead cables = cable car; overhead cables = streetcar (or trolley).

Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

Ride the cable car, say they rode the trolley
There are a few...

Ride the cable car, say they rode the trolley
There are a few... Photo-4974779.67183 - SFGate

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Spend their entire time in San Francisco shopping in Union Square
Locals are used to easy access to high-end shops downtown. Maybe that's why they just don’t see the allure of spending a vacation at Forever 21. You shouldn't really have a vacation in San Francisco without seeing Union Square, but some people get a little carried away when they see just how much nicer this mall is than theirs.

Photo: David Clapp, Getty Images

Spend their entire time in San Francisco shopping in Union Square...

Spend their entire time in San Francisco shopping in Union Square... Photo-4974780.67183 - SFGate

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Spend three days in Fisherman's Wharf
Three days is three days longer than locals want to spend at Fisherman’s Wharf. It's so full of kitsch, knick-knacks, shtick restaurants and "I love SF" tee shirts that tourists can lose their whole vacation taking it all in.
The goofiest thing you can do in San Francisco, maybe, is fall into a tourist trap and miss the city altogether.

Photo: Michael Maloney, The Chronicle

Spend three days in Fisherman's Wharf
Three days is three days...

Spend three days in Fisherman's Wharf
Three days is three... Photo-4974781.67183 - SFGate

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Go to the top of Lombard Street to take photos
The best views are at the bottom. Looking up catches the full crookedness of Lombard. Plus, the bottom also offers the best views of the poor tourists realizing halfway down that it's much more trouble than it's worth.

Photo: Mitchell Funk, Getty Images

Go to the top of Lombard Street to take photos
The best views are...

Go to the top of Lombard Street to take photos
The best views are... Photo-4974782.67183 - SFGate

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Hop on Muni and not ask for guidance
Muni is confusing. Maps are nearly non-existent and vague. It would take a transit-savant to figure it out on a first visit. This is one spot where it’s perfectly OK to ask a local. Everyone knows it’s a mess and residents are happy to help. Sometimes your driver might even offer some advice, too.

Photo: Christian Science Monitor

Hop on Muni and not ask for guidance
Muni is confusing. Maps are...

Hop on Muni and not ask for guidance
Muni is confusing. Maps are... Photo-4974783.67183 - SFGate

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Fail to book a spot on the Alcatraz ferry ahead of time
If it's that high on your to-do list for San Francisco, it's probably on everyone else's too. Some people don’t know the ferry out to Alcatraz fills up weeks in advance. And it's the only way to get out there. It's not an easy place to "swing by," and a lot of visitors miss out.

Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

Fail to book a spot on the Alcatraz ferry ahead of time
If it's...

Fail to book a spot on the Alcatraz ferry ahead of time
If... Photo-4974784.67183 - SFGate

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Buy knockoff San Francisco apparel by the boxful
There must be thrift stores around the world with SF-logo windbreakers clogging the racks. Or maybe all the discarded second-rate merch just gets sent back to Chinatown to be resold. Either way, it's hard to understand buying ten crummy caps instead of one you'd actually want to hang on to.

Photo: Robert Alexander, Getty Images

Buy knockoff San Francisco apparel by the boxful
There must be...

Buy knockoff San Francisco apparel by the boxful
There must be... Photo-4974785.67183 - SFGate

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Stop to plan next move… in the middle of the sidewalk
Pro tip: High-traffic spots are not ideal for a long stop-and-think. And a sudden halt in the middle of thick foot traffic is never a good move. Look, no one’s going to blame a tourist for needing a map. But it seems like all visitors take the same strategic approach to choosing the most in-the-way spots to gather their bearings.

Photo: Thomas Young, FlickrVision

Stop to plan next move… in the middle of the sidewalk
Pro tip:...

Stop to plan next move… in the middle of the sidewalk
Pro tip:... Photo-4974786.67183 - SFGate

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Take seemingly random photos
Tourists take pictures of interesting things. And so they should. But it seems like they take pictures of everything else too. They’ll get the bridge and Coit Tower, the “Haight-Ashbury” intersection and maybe the ballpark. But they’ll also get random street signs, menus and even ads on buses and buildings. Is it possible there’s a San Francisco bingo game locals know nothing about?

Stand on the wrong side of the escalator
There aren’t many rules to BARTing that visitors need to know. One that locals take very seriously, though, is the whole “stand to the right” gesture. It doesn’t seem like much, but nothing makes commuters lose their patience quicker than finding the left side clogged by standers. Standing on the wrong—that is, not right—side will embarrass tourists quickly, at least once they notice all the sighs and foot tapping behind them.

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

Stand on the wrong side of the escalator
There aren’t many rules...

Stand on the wrong side of the escalator
There aren’t many rules... Photo-4974788.67183 - SFGate

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Go to historic Haight-Ashbury… expecting anything but ice cream
At one point, the Haight was the San Francisco capital of social revolution. Today, it’s a grungy, charming shopping district with some minor trappings leftover from a more bohemian time. At the historic corner that once housed the Haight-Ashbury clinic, there's a thriving Ben & Jerry’s.
It’s not quite the time machine to the 1960s many tourists expect. It may no longer be a place for soulful meditation on on the nature of freedom. That said, try the ice cream.

Walk on Sixth Street to get from their SoMa hotel to Civic Center
It’s something you never want to have to say on vacation: “I’ve made a huge mistake.” On a good day, you’ll regret walking down Sixth. On a bad day, and you’ll regret choosing San Francisco as a vacation spot. Missing from travel guides and Google maps is avoid-advice: an anti guide of how not to see certain local color.

Photo: Mark Constantini, The Chronicle

Walk on Sixth Street to get from their SoMa hotel to Civic Center...

Walk on Sixth Street to get from their SoMa hotel to Civic Center... Photo-4974790.67183 - SFGate

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Know enough not to say Frisco, still say San Fran and Cali
There’s a lot of in-lingo in the Bay Area. Allegedly, locals keep the article “the” off of highways. “Hella” is both adjective and an unspecified amount of something. But the most important local word to know is “Frisco.” And the most important thing to know about it is: don’t say it.
And while tourists seem pretty hip to this unwritten rule, they too often shed any credit by swapping one hated nickname for another. Suffice to say it’s hard to not say the wrong thing in San Francisco, and tourists haven’t figured it out quite yet.

Photo: Jordan Siemens, Getty Images

Know enough not to say Frisco, still say San Fran and Cali...

Know enough not to say Frisco, still say San Fran and Cali... Photo-4974791.67183 - SFGate

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Happily wait (forever) to see the cable car turn around at Powell
It’s easy to understand wanting to see it. Sure, if you’re in the area at the right time. But there’s a sizable crowd at the end of Powell even on weekdays, just waiting. They wait there, probably all thinking the same thing: “it can’t be worth waiting so long.”
Then the car comes, it stops, and they wait. It revolves, it leaves, and everyone wanders away probably all thinking the same thing: “it wasn’t worth waiting so long.”

Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

Happily wait (forever) to see the cable car turn around at Powell...

Happily wait (forever) to see the cable car turn around at Powell... Photo-4974792.67183 - SFGate